Pills 'n' Thrills and Bellyaches

by

Happy Mondays

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After reading a few lazy reviews I felt confidently compelled to write about how I felt about this album, and what it means to me. I was 18 when this album was released. I was heavily into electronic music as well as rock music, but at the time it was hard to find good mixtures of both within the same band. Anyone who has bought music for a good portion of their lives knows how an album that is listened to at the tender age of 18 can profoundly affect the way they hear every album for the rest of their lives. Having been a dj for a few years up to this album's release, and realizing that i had heard quite a bit of mind-bending music, I can definitely say that this album was perfect in its execution of both rock and pop ideals, and continues to stand the test of time to this very day. This album, together with Primal Scream's "Screamadelica", and Shamen's "En-Tact" lp's, embodied the meshing of the dance and rock interface forever making it a cool thing for rockers to put on a dance tune, and ravers having a great rock album to throw on after a hard night of dancing. Regardless of what anyone has to say, this album does matter. I don't expect an 18 year old today to understand it and perhaps they shouldn't. I'm sure the only interest a teenager has in this album nowadays is to hear the first (and best) album Paul Oakenfold ever produced. But this album is essential and a must have. It sounds better than ever now, and still makes newer dance/rock albums by bands such as Garbage sound trite in comparison. These days the bands I get off on are Autechre, Spiritualized, Strokes, etc. These bands have nothing in common other than they make gorgeous and soulful noise. Pills, Thrills 'N Bellyaches aided me in destroying my borders and parameters of how certain music should be heard. Nothing in the realm of music is more important than that. Treat yourself to an important piece of music history, folks, and buy this album. You owe it to yourself to know why music today sounds the way it does.

Update: November 26th, 2009 -

A few comments on my review inspired me to mention that, despite my review being over eight years old, I still feel the same way about this album. My comment about the "18 year olds not getting it" was kind of stupid, and I don't know what compelled me to write that at the time. I seem to remember being on an Oakenfold-hating period which still continues today. The comparisons to Garbage are also out of date, but I think the statement of the Mondays being better than current dance/rock bands is applicable in 2009 (LCD Soundsystem and Killers come to mind). Anyway, if you do check out this album make sure you get the recent remastered edition with bonus tracks. It sounds incredible!

Solid Brit pop, funky Manchester genre. Sounds dated now. Sounded dated in 1992. Not the best of its class, nor the worst. "God's Cop" is probably the the best song on the album, with "Kinky Afro" a solid runner up. Nice groovy bass hooks that you hear popping up in rap music and mainstream pop and R&B. This album makes me sad that rock music with some soul is regarded as "dance music," as if it is less valuable, or serious, or significant. Even more sadly, this album could have had more presence and influence if the group making it had stayed sober for more than 5 or 10 minutes into a recording session.